(re)Purpose:full

As part of our partnership with Ocean Conservancy, Roth Staffing encourages all coworkers to pass on single-use plastic such as straws, disposable utensils, and coffee stirrers.

What’s the problem with plastic? It all winds up in the water. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating collection of debris, is twice the size of Texas! It’s estimated that more than 8 million metric tons of plastic winds up in our oceans every year, and this trash build-up has become a serious threat to marine wildlife.

Ocean life, including sea birds, turtles, and fish, often confuse floating plastic with food or get entangled in the trash. Additionally, trash collects pollutants that can contaminate wildlife and can even affect humans who consume contaminated fish.

The 15-Day Pass on Plastic Challenge – June 2018

Reducing our use of single-use plastics is the first step to protecting our oceans. In order to encourage and empower coworkers to lead more sustainable lives, we’re providing reusable cutlery to all of our coworkers with the aim of reducing trash output in the office.

With our 15-Day Challenge, coworkers across the nation are being challenged to go plastic-free for the fifteen work days between June 11th and 29th.

Plastic straws remain one of the most common finds during beach cleanups. Ocean Conservancy volunteers have found more than 9 million straws. That’s enough to line up along the entirety of California’s 840-mile coastline.

Impact

By providing reusable cutlery, trash output at the office has been greatly reduced and the amount of single-use plastic has been lowered.

The average person uses 1.6 straws per day. By providing a reusable straw to Roth’s 600+ coworkers, Roth Staffing is helping to eliminate up to 345,000 straws per year.

Ocean Conservancy’s annual International Coastal Cleanup has rallied more than 12 million volunteers to the cause and has managed to remove over 220 million pounds of trash from the world’s beaches.

Reducing plastic helps save marine life, including the endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal. With only about 1,400 individuals left, the Hawaiian Monk Seal is one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. They are greatly threatened by debris in the North Pacific.

Other species that are positively impacted by pass-on-plastic challenges, the no-straw pledge, and beach cleanups include sea lions, albatross, seagulls, sea turtles, and whales.